“And her,” Calum continued. “What will ye tell her?”
“The last thing I want is to make her more worried than she already is,” Alex said. “Maybe I will just tell her to let the letters come to me first, so I can respond.”
Calum nodded. He did not move for the door. He watched Alex the way a man watches the edge of a blade he has used for years.
“If ye like her, say it plainly in yer head, then fight clean,” he said, voice low. “If ye daenae, let her go before this turns into a thing we cannae mend.”
Alex rested both hands on the desk and felt the wood under his palms. “Go see the posts set tight by the east wall,” he ordered. “I want a change at dawn.”
Calum held his eyes for a beat longer, then bowed his head and left.
The door clicked shut behind him, and the study went quiet again.
Alex crossed to the cabinet and pulled the stopper from the bottle. He poured whisky into a cup and did not bother with water. The first swallow cut a path. He stood by the table and looked at the chair where Calum had stood, then at the fire that had burned lower. He had not fed it yet.
He thought of Erica in the doorway after the girls had opened the door, hand on her chest, a smile that held. He thought of the way he wanted to kiss her back in the library and wondered what would have happened if the door hadn’t been unlocked at that moment.
He set the cup down and rested his fingers on the rim. He could feel the old shape of himself, the one that held a house by force of habit, the one that slept in armor made of rules. It worked. It had kept the girls from breaking. It had kept him upright when the study window had stood open to winter.
He looked at his coat, where the letter lay. He had told Calum he would not be intimidated. It was true. Rage had come easily once. Now, it came with a cost.
He did not want another war. He wanted peace, inside his walls and outside them. He wanted a month to be a month, a lie to stay a lie, and the arrangement to go as smoothly as he could afford.
He lifted the cup again and drank. The second swallow sat warmer. The fire settled another inch. He did not feed it. He stood quietly and let the admission sit where it wanted.
Whether he spoke it or not, he was already across the line. And he would be damned to hell before he let anything happen to Erica or her mother under his watch.
He took a final sip, the determination sitting in his mind like the last stretch of his whisky. He did not want war, but he would fight if that was what he needed to do.
Erica sat by the window with her knees drawn close, chin on them, watching the moon hang low and bright above the stonewalls. The pane kept a thin chill from her skin, but not the restless churning in her chest. Sleep had evaded her again. It felt like a small, stubborn thing that would not be coaxed.
The lock lifted softly, and Leah slipped in with a basket against her hip, already talking low about warmed water and fresh linens, about setting lavender in the brazier so the room would smell kinder. Erica nodded out of habit, then heard herself cut across the rhythm.
“Actually,” she said, turning her face back to the window. “I think I will go out for a walk.”
Leah paused. “At this hour, me Lady?”
“Aye.” Erica lifted a shoulder. “Fine night for one, do ye nae think?”
Leah glanced at the sky framed by the stone. “Clear enough,” she said. “I will fetch yer shawl and follow.”
“Nay,” Erica said gently. “It is fine. I will only go around the garden. Maybe the courtyard. I willnae be long.”
Leah’s lips thinned a little; worry set in there. “Very well. I will leave the candle by the door.”
Erica took the shawl from the hook and wrapped it tight around herself. “Thank ye, Leah.”
Leah hesitated at the threshold. “Ring if ye need me.”
“I will.”
In the passageway, Erica kept her steps soft. The torches burned steadily in their brackets. The castle had a rhythm at night that she had begun to learn. She could hear a guard cough two passages over as the door behind her settled back into its frame. She put her palm against the cool stone of the wall as she descended the stairs, then let it fall to her side.
Outside, the air kissed her face and steadied her breath. The sky stretched clean, and the moon threw a pale path along the gravel and made the herb beds into dark squares.
She drew the shawl tighter and crossed to the inner gate, where two guards stood. Their heads turned at her approach and dipped a fraction.
“Good evening, me Lady,” the taller one greeted.
